John Keegan: Don't know much about history

You missed the point of my initial post.

 

Questions like that are just stupid. It is like asking someone who wants a smaller government" why do you want to deprive insert poor kids name here health care or adequate food"

Sometimes people have to make choices, and every choice Bush has made during the last 3 1/2 years seems to be the wrong choice.

 

For those of you still arguing that we (anti-Iraq war folks) wanted to keep Saddam in power, how do you respond to RM95's statement?

 

This is a ludicrous argument which basically means that nobody needs a reason to start a war now. Fox down in Mexico isn't an imminent threat, YET. We should invade.

The fact is that there were ways to keep Saddam from ever being a threat that didn't involve invasion. They've already been discussed. But among them were accepting the deal that allowed thousands of CIA and FBI agents to be on the ground inside Iraq with access to whatever they wanted. The continued containment which hadn't allowed him to produce any more WMD's despite a probably desire to do so.

 

I never said Bush used the word "imminent" and to my knowledge, nobody else did, either. Saddam, by anyone's estimation, was about as far from an imminent threat to the US as he could possibly be. He had no usable WMDs, no effective armed forces, no air force, and no defense network.

Besides it is precisely BECAUSE Saddam was not an imminent threat that we should have continued the policy of containment that was working marvelously and then put the FBI and CIA agents Saddam invited in to verify that Iraq's WMDs were gone.

Had we done that, we would still be focused on the area where AQ DOES operate and we might even have caught OBL by now. Instead, Bush decided to put the REAL War on Terror on hold to tilt at his windmills in Iraq.

 

I take issue with the whole "this is for liberation and humanitarianism" chant. If that were really the case, why aren't we actively fighting in the Congo, the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya (sp?), North Korea, China, South America, Central America, any part of sub-Saharan Africa???

I can understand and respect the WMD argument as legitimate or even the anti-terrorism argument (though the ties to Sadaam have been tenuous at best). I don't necessarily agree, but I understand their legitimacy as arguments.

But, the humanitarian issue rings totally and completely hollow when you consider our avoidance of other much more serious humanitarian causes throughout the world.

 

thank you jeff

 

Even if that were true, it wouldn't change my belief that we jumped on Iraq too soon with too many questions un-answered. But, that is MY opinion. You are certainly entitled to yours.

Even so, that wasn't my point. My point was that the humanitarian argument is really hollow comparitively speaking.

 

When we were massing for the invasion, Saddam made the offer in order to avoid war. Bush has claimed that we exhausted every available diplomatic option. That alone is enough to say that this war was unjustified.

 

So, someone brings up the fact that the "humanitarian" reason for the war were not enough and you try to change the subject by trotting out the same tired arguments "supporting terrorism" arguments? Aren't those the same arguments that every legitimate intelligence service in the world have debunked?

 

Is Saudi Arabia next? Should they have been first? This reminds me of pin the tail on the donkey. Start a war and we can always backfill some excuse.

BTW it is my understanding that the payments went to the suicide bomber's family to rebuild their house after the Israelis bulldoze it (and any other suspicious houses).

 

We can agree to disagree on this then. I'm not a big fan of how Bush has handled the whole issue, but I think it was necessary. We have tried sanctions and Sadaams hollow option when he new he was about to get blasted doesn't hold much weight with me.
I for one don't think the humanitarian angle is hollow. I know there are other areas that can use our help and hopefull we will have the chance to help them as well.
By the way, the humanitarian angle was more of why I felt it was necessary regardless of the reasons that the Bush admin put forth.

 

The thing that makes Iraq a little different are a couple of things about Sadaam.

1. He had used WMD before.

2. He had a desire to acquire more WMD

3. (unverified) He had connections with terrorists.

If the third is true or even partially true, then he stands out from other dictators.

On the human rights front, I agree with you, only I think we should be doing more in the name of liberty world wide, and to a certain extent and in different ways rather than war, we are able to.

But you're right, the humanitarian arguement doesn't stand on its own.

 

What qualifications do you lean on when making this opinion statement? What evidence have you collected, what sources have you contacted, what specific troops/equipment/etc do you think would have been better utilized in Afghanistan than in Iraq? Please elaborate on your simple statement and provide backup so that we can understand how you arrived at your conclusion. Be very specific.

The reason I request this of you is that it is my strong inclination that you have conducted absolutely zero research into this matter. Your reaction is the same liberal, mindless chatter that simply criticizes without evidence or with factually inaccurate assumptions and premises. Your beef isn't with the actual military deployments -- surely it can not be. You know essentially nothing about that. Your reaction is purely partisan driven. Prove that it isn't by answering the questions above.

 

No I didn't take him at his word, but he did let inspectors back in, and if he turned out to be lying there was plenty of time to invade later. There should be no rush to invade. Plus inviting agents into the country leaves little wiggle room. Either they go in or they don't. Previous deceptions by Saddam were mostly twisting and obscurring the truth.

But to refuse to even consider the offer considering recent progress made(inspectors were back in, aerial suveilance flights were allowed over interior Iraq, longer range missles were being destroyed) is rushing to war without exhausting all possibilities.

Now if you want to talk about gullible, I would say believing that would be the ones who believe Rumsfeld when he claimed that he knew where the WMD's were or others that still try and act like Saddam had a connection to terror based on testimony of an exile who has a history of giving bad intel.

For the millionth time Saddam's payments were to the family of martyrs who lost their lives to Israel. A very small percentage of those were the families of suicide bombers. A far greater recipient of the money were families of innocent civilians killed by Israelis. It can be spun the other way, but it isn't really the whole truth.

 

I am stunned that the right would continually put forth misleading and false information in a sad attempt to justify a war that was clearly based on false pretenses.

Lying, soulless conservative.